Clean water is essential to human health and in many parts of the world it is in limited supply. Water that is fit for human consumption is called drinking water or potable water. Water that is not specifically made for drinking, but is not harmful for human, when used for food preparation is called safe water.
Water as a natural resource is becoming scarcer in certain places, and its availability is a major social and economic concern. However, the tendency of people to use safe drinking water is on the increase due to the knowledge and importance of drinking safe water to preserve their health and to avoid water borne diseases. In order to get safe water, people opt for packaged drinking water. The packaged drinking water shall conform to certain standards namely with respect to physical, chemical and microbiological parameters. The packaged drinking water is normally derived from any source of potable water which is subjected to one or more treatments, namely, decantation, filtration, combination of filtration, aerations, filtration with membrane filter, depth filter, cartridge filter, activated carbon filtration, demineralization and remineralization, reverse osmosis, ozonisation, ultraviolet treatment and packed. The packaged drinking water is disinfected to a level that will not lead to harmful contamination in the drinking water. It may be disinfected by means of one of chemical agents and physical methods to reduce the number of microorganism to a level that does not compromise water safety or suitability. In the process, water loses its natural taste and flavor.
In order to provide safe packaged drinking water with better flavor to people, many innovative flavors of packaged drinking water have been created. Examples of flavors include berry flavor, fruit flavor, lime flavor, spice flavor and the like. These flavors are also sometimes complemented with one or more artificial sweeteners, natural sweeteners, vitamins, minerals, fibers, spice infusions, acidulants and emulsifiers. However, these flavored packaged drinking waters still do not provide any additional health benefits to people along with the drinking water. On the other hand, herbs have been known to provide health benefits to people. The health benefits can be in the form of complete health benefits, partial health benefits or psychological health benefits. Many herbal drinks are available in the market to serve the segment of people specifically trying to look for a health drink of herbal nature. However, this has limited the usage of herbal products only to people who suffer from a health problem.
In the present scenario, there is a need for a formulation of drinking water, in particular for a formulation of packaged drinking water, which can address this problem of providing additional health benefits to people, along with providing a better taste and flavor to the water. Also, there is a need for a formulation of packaged drinking water, which can provide the benefits of herbs to a larger population and can work as a replacement for the regular drinking water.